Elizabeth
Principal/Lead Business Architect for Enterprise Architecture at The Walt Disney Company
The term Capability is overloaded in the IT world. I often hear it to mean any of the following depending on who is speaking and the context in which they are speaking. As I listen to people talk, I hear a few different definitions that I interpreted based on the speaker, context and content. I believe there are probably many more definitions.
1. Capability is a functionality required by the business and designed, developed, enhanced by technology. In this context capability can change, be created, replaced. I refer to this as functionality.
2. Capability is a technology asset. (Rules Engine, etc) I disagree with this use of the term, but nonetheless it is used.
3. Capability is a high level stable business conceptual construct that is inherent to what your organization does and will always be there as you remain in business. This concept is technology agnostic. To some extent it is also organizational agnostic in that it is something inherent to the business that multiple lines of business contribute roles, functions, processes, rules needed to support it. You may have thousands of processes and rules but only about 60 - 80 of these type of capabilities.
I wish Forrester named term number 3 something other than capability because the concept and purpose behind it is important, but number 3 is represented as a noun and not a verb which causes issues between the word itself and the purpose or definition.
So when you are talking to someone about capability, make sure you find out what their definition is because very likely they are not talking about the same thing you are talking about.
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